Reading poetry is a rewarding experience, thanks in part to the musical quality of the carefully-chosen words and phrases. Often, their rhyme plays an important role in helping us appreciate each line.
A rhyme occurs when similar-sounding words are repeated in two or more lines. Our most common idea of rhyme is the “perfect rhyme,” when the last words of two or more lines share the same vowel sound and consonant sound, and are both either stressed or unstressed.
However, the great thing about rhymes is that there are many different ways of creating them; they’re not limited to just perfect rhymes. Sometimes, you might use the poetic device known as half rhyme.
What Is a Half Rhyme?
A half rhyme (also known as an imperfect rhyme, slant rhyme, oblique rhyme, or near rhyme), is when the final consonant sounds of stressed syllables rhyme, but the final vowel sounds do not.
It is also considered a half rhyme when two words have similar ending sounds, but one ends in a stressed syllable and the other in an unstressed syllable.
For example, these pairs of words end in the same consonant sounds, but have different vowel sounds:
- bag and bug
- hot and bit
- bridge and grudge
- hit and put
- boat and cat
- young and song
- heart and hurt
Meanwhile, the examples of half rhymes below share the same ending consonant sounds, but one ends with a stressed syllable and the other with an unstressed syllable. To make it easy for you, we have put the stressed syllables in bold below:
- feather and Sir
- acting and thing
- notebook and look
- hunger and thirst
Function of Half Rhyme
So why should you use a half rhyme if you can actually find a perfect rhyme? One key reason is that half rhymes help you avoid cliché rhymes that readers already expect. In fact, perfect rhymes can sometimes become boring because they are so common, but when you throw a half rhyme in the mix, it grabs the reader’s attention.
Another reason for using half rhymes is that many English words are nearly impossible to rhyme perfectly. Half rhymes work subtly, giving your listener a nice aural connection.
Examples of Half Rhyme in Rap
Half rhyme is a common technique used in rap music, because it gives the rapper more flexibility to connect words.
Take a look at these half rhymes from rap music:
- Eminem: His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy / There’s vomit on his sweater already: mom’s spaghetti / He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready / To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting / what he wrote down. The whole crowd goes so loud / He opens his mouth but the words won’t come out / He’s choking, how? Everybody’s joking now / The clock’s run out / Time’s up, over —blaow!’
- Scarface: I got this killa up inside of me / I can’t talk to my mother so I talk to my diary.
Examples of Half Rhyme in Literature
Let’s review some examples that illustrate how half rhyme affects the feel of a poem:
Example #1. From “Poems by Sing-Song” by Christina Rossetti
Bread and milk for breakfast
And woolen frocks to wear,
And a crumb for robin redbreast
On the cold days of the year.
Christina Rossetti uses a half rhyme for both the first and third lines and the second and fourth lines. “Breakfast” and “redbreast” both end in the “-st” sound, but they use different vowel sounds. “Wear” and “year,” spelled with the same ending letters “-ear,” actually only end in the same “-r” consonant sound but different vowel sounds.
Example #2. “A Cradle Song” by William Blake
Sweet dreams, form a shade
O’er my lovely infant’s head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
In this stanza, William Blake uses half rhyme for the first two lines, with the words “shade” and “head” ending in the same consonant sound “-d” but using different vowel sounds.
Example #3. “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops – at all.
Emily Dickinson uses half rhyme with the first and third line as as well as the second and fourth line. For “feathers” and “words,” the difference is the accent, with “feathers” ending in an unaccented syllable, while “words” is accented, and they also have a slight difference in the final consonant sound.
For “soul” and “all,” they are both stressed syllables ending in the “-l” sound, but they use different vowel sounds.
Example #4. “Baa Baa Black Sheep” Nursery Rhyme
Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame
And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.
In this nursery rhyme, “wool” and “full” are considered half rhyme, as they both end in the consonant sound “-l” but use different vowels. “Dame” and “lane” share a final nasal consonant, and also sound like rhymes.
Example #5. “The Invaders” by A.A. Milne
In careless patches through the wood
The clumps of yellow primrose stood,
And sheets of white anemones,
Like driven snow against the trees,
Had covered up the violet,
But left the blue-bell bluer yet.
In this poem excerpt, Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne uses a perfect rhyme for the first two lines, followed by two pairs of half rhymes:
“Wood” and “stood” have a perfect rhyme. “Anemones” ends in an unstressed syllable while “trees” is a stressed syllable, making it a half rhyme. “Violet” and “yet” also end in the same sound but “violet” ends in an unstressed syllable while “yet” is stressed.
Example #6. “Savior of the World,” Volume 3 by Charlotte Mason
The skiff leaped high, the skiff sank low;
“Sure that will waken Him!” but, no;
He lay serene in slumber bound,
Through strife of elements around.
Great storm of wind upon the sea
Their vessel filling, “What doth He
Asleep, while we, in jeopardy?”
Here you can see the effect that half rhyme has when it follows a series of perfect rhymes. The first three pairs of lines end with perfect rhymes: “low” and “no,” “bound” and “around,” and “sea” and “He.”
But the poet adds one more line, with a half rhyme for the word “jeopardy,” ending in a similar vowel sound as “sea” and “He” but having an unstressed final syllable.
Using Half Rhymes in Writing Poems
As you can see from these examples, using half rhymes is a great way to add variety and a hint of the unexpected to your poems. If you’ve always been used to creating perfect rhymes, try deviating from it once in a while, and see how it changes the feel of your poem.
You can also use half rhymes in other ways, such as in ballads and songs. They usually sound even more interesting when used in song, because the lines don’t end in predictable words.
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- How to Analyze a Poem: 8 Tips for Understanding Poetry
Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
